Agriculture is big business in the USA, where 2 percent of farms account for half of all agricultural sales. The industry further consolidated under the laissez-faire policies of the Bush years, but the Obama administration is sending signals that it intends to turn the tide.

Fred Stokes, 74 years old, grew up on a family farm in rural Mississippi in the 1940s. At the time, he says, most people lived off the land. Now there is just one full-time farmer in the whole county.

Listen to the Newsline interview with Fred Stokes

Rigged game
Today Mr Stokes is executive director of the Organisation for Competitive Markets, a farmer's association dedicated to restoring free market competition to agriculture. He says that behemoth corporations have rigged the game against small farmers.

“On the one hand, the farmer – when he buys his tractor, his diesel fuel, his chemicals, fertilizer,  and other farm inputs – he has to buy from what is essentially a monopoly. He has to pay too much, he’s getting gouged.

“Then when he produces the crop – whether it be livestock or row crops or whatever – he has to sell to what is referred to as a monopsony, which is the sale side of a monopoly. And so he gets something less than a fair and competitive price for what he has to sell. The effect is he’s been squeezed out of business. We’re down now to a very small number of independent farmers left in this country.”

Agribusiness
Trust-busting is not a new concept. Laws intended to prevent monopolies have been on the books for decades, but Mr Stokes claims they have been consistently ignored when it comes to agriculture.

“The trend is toward corporate owned farms or corporate controlled farms where they contract with the farm owner. They don’t own the farm, they just own the farmer.”

Economic orthodoxy in agriculture dictates that bigger farms lead to lower prices, but Mr Stokes disagrees. He even sees national security implications stemming from the corporate search for the lowest costs. 

“This former breadbasket to the world is now a net food importer. And we’re becoming dependent on offshore sources for our vital food needs. It’s insane. We’re putting the people out of business who have reliably provided an abundant affordable wholesome food supply.

“We’re not trying to rebuild ‘little house on the prairie’. But the farm culture has been a vital component of the fabric of this nation forever.”

Deadly serious
The Obama administration looks set to turn the tide. At the annual convention of the Organisation for Competitive Markets this month in St. Louis, a Justice department official announced plans to investigate the agriculture industry.

Starting next year, the departments of Justice and Agriculture will host workshops around the United States, where small farmers can voice the problems they face. Mr Stokes says he is optimistic something will be done.

“In the past there have been smokescreens designed just to placate people. I don’t think this is the case. I think that these workshops that they’re planning at the end of the year is an earnest effort.

“I have no doubt that the pushback from these various corporations is going to mount over time. But I think the administration is deadly serious in trying to enforce the antitrust laws, which have been effectively ignored for decades.”

The Justice department said it will focus on seed companies, beef packing and dairy. On his popular NBC show Mad Money, stock analyst Jim Cramer predicted seed giant Monsanto will face hard times under the Obama administration.